MAL. Mistress Mary, if you prized my lady's favour at any thing more than contempt, you would not give means for this uncivil rule; she shall know of it, by this hand. [Exit.

MAR. Go shake your ears.

SIR AND. "Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man's a-hungry, to challenge him the field, and then to break promise with him, and make a fool of him.

SIR TO. Do't, knight; I'll write thee a chal

lenge: or I'll deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth.

MAR. Sweet sir Toby, be patient for to-night; since the youth of the count's was to-day with my lady, she is much out of quiet. For monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him: if I do not gull him into a nay-word, and make him a common

a Nay word,-] By-word; the old copy has, ayword.

recreation, do not think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed: I know I can do it.

SIR To. Possess us, possess us; tell us something of him.

MAR. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan.

SIR AND. O, if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog!

SIR TO. What, for being a puritan? thy exquisite reason, dear knight?

SIR AND. I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have reason good enough.

MAR. The devil a puritan that he is, or any thing constantly, but a time-pleaser; an affectioned ass, that cons state without book, and utters it by great swarths the best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks, with excellencies, that it is his ground of faith, that all, that look on him, love him; and on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work.

SIR TO. What wilt thou do?

MAR. I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love; wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated: I can write very like my lady, your niece; on a forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands.

SIR TO. Excellent! I smell a device.
SIR AND. I have't in my nose too.

SIR TO. He shall think by the letters that thou wilt drop, that they come from my niece, and that she's in love with him?

MAR. My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour.

SIR AND. And your horse now would make him

SIR AND. If I cannot recover your niece, I am a foul way out.

SIR TO. Send for money, knight; if thou hast her not i'the end, call me cut.

SIR AND. If I do not, never trust me, take it how you will.

SIR TO. Come, come; I'll go burn some sack, 'tis too late to go to bed now: come, knight; come, knight. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-A Room in the Duke's Palace.
Enter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO, and others.
DUKE. Give me some music.-Now, good mor-
row, friends:-
:-

Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,
That old and antique song we heard last night;
Methought it did relieve my passion much,
More than light airs, and recollected terms
Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times:-
Come, but one verse.

CUR. He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing it.

DUKE. Who was it?

CUR. Feste, the jester, my lord; a fool that the lady Olivia's father took much delight in: he is about the house.

DUKE. Seek him out:-and play the tune the while. [Exit CURIO.-Music. Come hither, boy; if ever thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it, remember me: For such as I am, all true lovers are,Unstaid and skittish in all motions else, Save, in the constant image of the creature That is belov'd.-How dost thou like this tune? Vio. It gives a very echo to the seat Where Love is thron'd.

DUKE.
Thou dost speak masterly:
My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye
Hath staid upon some favour that it loves ;-
Hath it not, boy?

VIO.
A little, by your favour.
DUKE. What kind of woman is't?
VIO.
Of your complexion.
DUKE. She is not worth thee, then. What
years, i' faith?

Vio. About your years, my lord.

DUKE. Too old, by heaven: let still the woman

take

An elder than herself; so wears she to him,

Call me cut, when thou metest me another day."

It appears to be synonymous with the "call me horse" of Falstaff, and, Malone suggests, was probably an abbreviation of curtal.

d Favour-] Countenance. In her reply, Viola employs the word in a double sense.

sir.

A thousand thousand sighs to save,

Lay me, O, where

Sad true lover ne'er find my grave,

To weep there! (8)

DUKE. There's for thy pains.

DUKE. Give me now leave to leave thee. CLO. Now, the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal !"—I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be everything, and their intent everywhere; for that's it that always makes a good voyage of nothing.-Farewell. [Exit Clown.

DUKE. Let all the rest give place.—

[Exeunt CURIO and Attendants.
Once more, Cesario,

Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty:
Tell her, my love, more noble than the world,
Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;
The parts that fortune hath bestow'd
upon her,
Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune;
But 'tis that miracle and queen
of gems,
That nature pranks her in, attracts my soul.
VIO. But if she cannot love you, sir?
DUKE. I cannot be so answer'd.
VIO.

Sooth, but you must.
Say that some lady, as, perhaps, there is,
Hath for your love as great a pang of heart
As
you have for Olivia: you cannot love her;
You tell her so: must she not, then, be answer'd?
DUKE. There is no woman's sides,

Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
As love doth give my heart: no woman's heart
So big, to hold so much; they lack retention.
Alas, their love may be call'd appetite,-
No motion of the liver, but the palate,-
That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt;
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much: make no compare
Between that love a woman can bear me,
And that I owe Olivia.

love,

DUKE. I'll pay thy pleasure then.

CLO. Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid, one time or another.

(*) Old text, Fye-fie.

a Sooner lost and worn,-] Johnson proposed to read won for worn, and perhaps rightly.

She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
We men may say more, swear more, but, indeed,
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove

(*) Old text, It.

b For thy mind is a very opal!] The opal being a stone which varics its hues according to the different lights in which it is seen.

MAL. 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told me she did affect me: and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect than any one else that follows her. What should I think on't? SIR TO. Here's an over-weening rogue! FAB. O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him; how he jets under his advanced plumes!

SIR AND. 'Slight, I could so beat the rogue! SIR TO. Peace! I say.

MAL. To be count Malvolio ;

SIR TO. Ah, rogue!

SIR AND. Pistol him, pistol him.

SIR TO. Peace, peace

a

!

MAL. There is example for't; the lady of the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe. SIR AND. Fie on him, Jezabel!

FAB. O, peace! now he's deeply in; look how imagination blows him.

MAL. Having been three months married to her, sitting in my state,―

SIR TO. O, for a stone-bow,(9) to hit him in the eye!

MAL. Calling my officers about me, in my branched velvet gown; having come from a daybed, where I have left Olivia sleeping,

SIR TO. Fire and brimstone!

FAB. O, peace, peace.

MAL. And then to have the humour of state: and after a demure travel of regard,-telling them, I know my place, as I would they should do theirs -to ask for my kinsman Toby;

SIR To. Bolts and shackles !

FAB. O, peace, peace, peace! now, now. MAL. Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for him: I frown the while; and, perchance, wind up my watch, or play with some rich jewel. Toby approaches; court'sies there

ing my familiar smile with an austere regard of control,

SIR TO. And does not Toby take you a blow o' the lips then?

MAL. Saying, Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your niece, give me this prerogative of speech,

SIR TO. What, what?

MAL. You must amend your drunkenness.
SIR To. Out, scab!

FAB. Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot.

MAL. Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a foolish knight ;

SIR AND. That's me, I warrant you.

MAL. One sir Andrew:-
:-

SIR AND. I knew, 't was I; for many do call me fool. MAL. What employment have we here? [Taking up the letter. FAB. Now is the woodcock near the gin. SIR TO. O, peace! and the spirit of humours intimate reading aloud to him!

MAL. By my life, this is my lady's hand: these be her very C's, her U's, and her T's; and thus makes she her great P's. It is, in contempt of question, her hand.

SIR AND. Her C's, her U's, and her T's: why that?

MAL. [Reads.] To the unknown beloved, this, and my good wishes: her very phrases!-By your leave, wax.-Soft!—and the impressure her Lucrece, with which she uses to seal: 't is my lady. To whom should this be?

FAB. This wins him, liver and all.
MAL. [Reads.] Jove knows, I love:
But who?

Lips do not move :

No man must know.